Nesteq Nova 600W review

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the chassis

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Our Verdict

Thinking outside the box - literally

For

Provides extra room inside

Low temperatures

Nesteq has broken all the usual design constraints. The Nova comes in two parts: a bracket that sits in your case's usual PSU area, and a power unit outside your case. All the internal connections to hard drives, motherboard and graphics cards trail from this bracket, giving you a great deal of extra room.

The external unit comes in an aluminium box, with a blue LCD display on the front showing power draw, temperature and voltage monitoring in real-time. It's interesting to see what causes the power usage to rise, often during heavy CPU calculations, I/O or intensive gaming.

The Nesteq power supply is also semi-silent, meaning its fans only spin when the temperature reaches a certain point, set at 65ºC. This feature is helped by the PSU being external, away from heat inside the chassis. Having an external PSU is more than a gimmick, it reduces clutter and heat inside your case, and monitoring the power load via the LCD display is useful to see just what your computer is up to.